The Benefits of Playing Golf
Playing golf is not only a great distraction it is also good for your health. It is one of those games that is subtly physically invigorating without being too strenuous. The constant walking, swinging and breathing in of fresh air creates natural drugs called endorphins that are released into your bloodstream.
The reason it is so good for you is that most of the movements involved are a form of aerobic exercise which is great for weight loss and cardiovascular health. Walking the entirety of most golf courses is a journey of four to eight miles. When you swing your club you use many different muscles in your body including your arm, shoulder, back and leg muscles.
Playing a game like golf can also help reduce your stress, blood pressure and high cholesterol. Just paling a single 18-hole game of life can burn up to one thousand calories. It is a great way to get the blood flowing and shed those pounds. Golfing is a lot more fun than slogging away on a treadmill in a gym or pedaling away on a stationary bike.
Furthermore the carrying of your clubs from tee to tee is good weight-bearing exercise. It can help you build new muscle and give you muscle tone. Once you create muscle tone you will be burning more calories, even while your body is at rest. Before you know it all of this exercise will start paying off in the way you look and feel.
If you play even once a week for an entire summer golfing season. you will see a major improvement in your health including a reduction of your waistline. Many people who engage in a regular sport like this also see an elevation in their mood. It also helps that you get plenty of fresh air and sunshine on a golf course. This means that you are getting regular doses of Vitamin D which is essential to maintaining our moods as well as bone strength.
Golf is also a game that requires that you use strategy, applied skill and your memory. It can help older people sharpen their mind. If you are older golf is also a way of regularly seeing and socializing with others.
If you hate working out yet need to stay healthy then go ahead and take a walk on a golf course. As the great American writer Mark Twain once ironically said “Golf is a good walk spoiled.”